1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to data processing systems for vehicles, navigation and relative location. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a network-based navigation system for use with a map database system that provides visual route guidance information having virtual drive-thru advertisements integrated with actual imagery from along a physical route.
2. Background Art
Computerized route guidance and navigation systems are well known in the art. In-vehicle navigation systems, for example, rely on global positioning satellite (GPS) technology to provide current positional information of a vehicle that is used to control the display of route specific geographic or cartographic information maintained in a map database carried by the vehicle. In contrast, Internet-based navigation and mapping services like MapQuest®, Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps and Microsoft MapPoint® rely on a user request for information about a particular route or destination, instead of GPS data, and then use this information to access various online map databases in order to provide the user with maps and travel instructions over the Internet.
While most in-vehicle navigation systems display the position of the vehicle or the desired route on conventional cartographic map displays, some in-vehicle navigation systems have been designed to provide additional information beyond the conventional in-vehicle map display. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,115,398 describes an in-vehicle navigation system in which the navigation data is used to superimpose an indication signal on a real-time image of the roadway generated by a forward-looking video image pick-up unit in the vehicle. U.S. Pat. No. 5,982,298 describes an in-vehicle navigation system with a user interface that integrates highway-monitoring video with maps information. U.S. Pat. No. 6,525,768 describes a similar arrangement utilizing a personal digital assistant, instead of a completely in-vehicle based system. Similar kinds of additional information have also been integrated into Internet-based navigation systems, as shown for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,477,460 and 6,498,982.
Navigation systems have been developed that correlate aerial perspectives of a route (either actual or virtual) with map-based information in order to provide the equivalent of a bird's-eye view flyover of the route. U.S. Pat. No. 6,653,990 describes an in-vehicle version of this approach. U.S. Publication Nos. 2004/0218910A1 and 2002/0059207A1 describe Internet-based versions of this approach.
Navigation systems have also attempted to integrate driver perspectives of a route (either actual or virtual) with map-based information in order to provide the equivalent of a first-person drive-thru of the route. U.S. Pat. No. 4,937,950 describes an early attempt to incorporate a three-dimensional presentation of an in-vehicle map-based navigation route. U.S. Pat. No. 5,613,055 describes the use of driver-point-of-view generated animation of a navigation route. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,199,014 and 6,351,710 describe the use of driver-point-of-view photographs for an Internet-based navigation system, while U.S. Pat. No. 6,182,011 describes the same approach used in an in-vehicle navigation system. PCT Publication No. WO 99/39160A1 describes the use of first person-perspective video clips of a route to be navigated, such as displayed on a handheld device. Various techniques for acquiring video and photographic images of a physical roadway from a driver-perspective are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,633,946, 6,449,384, 6,453,056, and 6,526,352, including the recognition of road signs along the roadway.
In-vehicle navigation systems have been developed that make use of information alongside or near a roadway as part of the navigation system, as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,671,615 and 6,836,724. Other in-vehicle systems as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,664,948, 5,627,549, 6,542,822 and 6,714,860, and U.S. Publication No. 2003/0006911 A1, for example, have been developed to present information about road signs and other forms of advertisements to the occupants of a vehicle as the vehicle passes the vicinity of the road sign or advertisement. One in-vehicle navigation system that provides augmented information in a video display of the current route is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,604,398.
Even though in-vehicle navigation systems have made use of additional information from road signs and advertisements to augment or supplement the actual experience as a vehicle is traveling along a roadway, there have been very few similar approaches developed for other types of applications. One application where there has been the selective replacement of video images, and particularly billboard advertising images, has been in the context of broadcasting sporting events. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,208,386, 6,292,227 and 6,384,471 describe various techniques for processing video streams acquired by stationary cameras in order to effectively replace actual billboards in a stadium with prerecorded or computer generated advertising images. The techniques for selective replacement of a portion of a video image acquired by a stationary camera are generally well known as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,353,392, 5,491,517, 6,252,632, 6,381,362, 6,525,780, 6,774,908 and 6,778,244 and PCT Publication No. WO 98/24242 A1. While these techniques are well developed with respect to the changing fields of view for a stationary camera, these techniques generally have not been applied in the context of actual imagery captured by a moving camera traversing along a physical roadway.
It would be desirable to provide a network-based navigation system for use with a map database system that improved upon the current approaches for using actual imagery from along a physical route in conjunction with the navigation instructions for a given route.